Enceladus plume constraints and implications for global neutral particle distribution

Details Enceladus plume constraints and implications for global neutral particle distribution Enceladus plume constraints and implications for global neutral particle distribution

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm31d..07s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM31D-07

Physics

Plasma Physics

[5737] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Magnetospheres, [5780] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Tori And Exospheres, [7823] Space Plasma Physics / Ionization Processes, [7837] Space Plasma Physics / Neutral Particles

Scientific paper

Neutral particle dominance over charged particles in Saturn’s magnetosphere was evident prior to Cassini arrival at Saturn in 2004. However, the observation of active plumes emanating from the southern pole of the small icy moon, Enceladus provided the key information for understanding the particle sources and dynamics in the magnetospheric region. Estimates show this 252 km radius moon is likely the dominant source of particles in the magnetosphere producing 1027 to 1028 neutral water molecules per second. Cassini has flown through the plumes on several occasions which appear to indicate variability in this source rate. In this talk, we use Cassini CAPS and MIMI observations to generate updated neutral particle lifetimes and use INMS observations during these encounters to constrain our 3-D multi-species neutral particle model. This is done in order to estimate the plume source rate, ejection velocity and ejection angle for three Enceladus encounters (E2, E3 & E5). This study shows that there is evidence for plume source rate variability of at least a factor of four over approximately 7 months. Finally we examine the implications of this variability on global neutral particle distributions.

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